Day 3, Torgiano to Ferentino

The day is posted as Torgiano to Ferentino, getting up to 1000m above sea level, starting from 210m. However, the start was really at San Andrea d'Agliano, a good 10km away, when I hardly had any fuel. Fortunately, I made it!

Amazingly, Howard had sorted his fuel starvation problem, and Mike was riding... all be it with an extremely sore shoulder.

The day started in Mist. Actually very nice, cool inside the leathers. However, it burnt off, but by then we were seriously up in the mountains. The first few stops of the day were in quick succession, with one, Parco Acquarossa, greeting us with two planes just sticking out of the ground.

We travelled through a quite a number of places including Bastardo (Bastard). We climbed to 670m, and the had a gentle trip down to about 400m.

We then rode passed a dam, and then along the edge of a reservoir created by the dam, to be finally confronted by this mountain top village, Castel Di Tora, overlooking the reservoir. Absolutely stunning... and that's where we stopped for lunch, and a nice rest. By this time it was blazingly hot. The leathers were doing OK though, as long as I kept moving.

Then it was back in the saddle again climbing to 1000m above sea level and then finally finishing in another mountain town called Ferentino. Arriving at this town was quite incredible. You rod eup through a modern town, on a big hill, then you went through a medieval gate, and suddenly you were riding through streets that were just wide enough to get a cart through. We then came into a square, where we were met by the Ferentino culture preservation society, and the Ferentino motor club, and a good proportion of the old town. There we got beers, hung around... and hung around... and hung around, to then find we were to be escorted by a local person to our hotels. We elected to use the GPS.

Do you think, after 292km we were finished riding? Absolutely not! We had a 20 minute ride up another mountain to the hotels. Not particular nice one, but it did have a bath, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Then dinner, which didn't go on too long like the night before. We got to find out placings, and Ron and I were in equal 3rd place with a few others. Then bed, and easy day the next day... we even potentially got a lie in.

Day 2 - oops, Zola Predosa to Torgiano

Day 2 is Zola Predosa to Torgiano. It started well. I was really lookng forwards to it. 322km of twisties. This is real twisties, getting up to 900m above sea level. Having to use gears, as well as brakes, and getting the line correct. Something we don't have much of in Australia. Fanastic time.

At one point, going up a mountain, we passed Howard Chambers and Mike Webster stopped beside the road. I looked back to see if they needed help. Fidele stopped right in front of me, to help them. I happened to look forwards just in time, as I was about to hit him. Some very quick thinking meant that I swerved, but my legshields caught his rear panel handel and lifted the metal on the side, which then scraped across his panel and then his foot board. My leg also hit his rear rack,causing quite a nasty bruise. All I can say is that Fidele is amazing. I seriously damaged his beautiful scooter, and all he said was "don't worry, you didn't do it on purpose".

Later that day, I was to notice that Mike's scooter had a broken headlamp, that was a bit mangled. Turns out so was the mudguard, and Mike. Seems Mike was overtaking a car on a corner when another car came in the opposite direction... so he slide the scooter. At this point, he was a bit sore, but carried on riding.

We saw many amazing sights. Mountains with villages plonked on the top of them. We even rode through some, and stopped in a few. One of my favourites was this one. You were riding up a mountain, cam around a corner and there was the stop and this tiny village. Whilst it wasn't particularly picturesque, as a village, I loved "Bar Pit Stop", the guy was a real motoring enthusiast.

We got to the last time stop of the day, Brufa. Whilst we were under the tent feeding ourselves, as usual, the heavens opened. This was good as we were, as I said, under the tent. Unfortunately, it didn't stop raining until about 15 minutes after we left. Machines were dropping like flies as old Italian electronics and water do not seem to mix well.

The day finished with us hanging around at the town centre of Torgiano. Very confusing. We had to place our machines near a hotel sign, and I found out that it meant the hotel owner was going to escort us. Suddenly we were off, and following a Fiat Bambini... back where we had come. I had hardly any petrol left at all, so was getting a little concerned about if I'd make it. Finally we pulled into the fantastic Borgo Brufa Spa Hotel.

At 8pm, we were collected by coach and taken to a mountain top castle near by. We got there in time to see a wonderful sunset, and were met by cocktails, we were then escorted into the castle where, once again, the food was wonderful. However, they only stopped feeding us at midnight and we got back to the hotel at 1am... with an 8am start, some distance away, which meant rising at 6am to get breakfast, fuel up and ride to the start. Not enough sleep!

Much discussion went on that night as to what to do about Akiko and Suzanne as they were riding in the LDV, which was the support van for Mike and Howard. There looked like a good chance that Mike would not start the next day, and if Howard broke down there would not be enough room for everyone. Howard had been having Fuel starvation problems during the day, so this eventuality was looking likely, however Howard was back at the hotel trying to fix his machine. Fortunately, during the previous day I had met the Japanese rider, and had introduced Akiko. They were now on our table, and so it was decided that Akiko and Suzanne would now ride in their backup car,this was a great sacrifice for them, as it could travel more than 90kph, and had air conditioning.... both being something the LDV could not do.

Day 1 Idroscalo,Milan to Zola Predosa

The start is at Idroscalo in Milan. Built by Mussolini for Flying boats to land, now just a recreational artificial lake. Ron and I rode there, from Vittorio's, with Mike Webster and Howard Chambers, and met the rest of the team there.

Everything appeared to be very disorganised. The officials seem to expect you to know everything by osmosis, and that is a problem. It's not disorganisation... it's lack of communication. You are very reliant on people who have done this event before, but even they don't seem to know exactly what is going on. E.g., we arrived, we go to scrutineering. Can't get that done because we had no pass, which you get from Registration. We can't ride the sccots to registration, so we park them up along the water front and walk to registration pay the €1090 we owed, which is all inclusive... which it isn't, because we then have to pay another €10 to join the club to cover us on insurance.

Then we can get scrutineered... Do you have a headlight, rear light and a horn? Yes? OK!

Next drop off the bags. Ron and I both have two, as we are both in couples. We can't have two because we are only allowed one as we only have our ID badge. We had been told that the team had the packages for Akiko and Suzanne, to then find out that they didn't, someone else did. So, we got the ID badges, and were then told that it was competitors only that got bags moved for free, so we then had to pay another €25 to have the bags transported. It may seem like a whinge, but the litany goes on.

We went to the Innocenti factory. Not much left now. I couldn't get a pic in front of the main gates, as it was inhabited by Gypsies. We rode around the entire site. The area where Lambrettas were made is now a housing complex. We rode around to the back, and went past the famous water tower and pulled up behind one of the main factory building shells. Only one still has a roof on it. We took some photos, and as we were about to leave Dinato broke down. Meanwhile, a security guard shows up in a car and just watches us continually trying to get the scooter going... which finally turned out to be a plastic bag he had under the seat being sucked in the the intake manifold.

The start was amazing. The build up, not much, but then people started to go. Whilst I'm waiting I discover that the traditional method is bump start... which I practice. This is in the last 15 minutes. People start going. Eventually we are next in line. Howard Chambers and Mike Webster are announced as being Australian and get a huge cheer. Then it's Ron and I, and the announcer corrects what he said before, but the cheer is not as big... but we run, we bump, we start... we go around the corner......... and stop to meet the rest of the Lambretta team. You see.... it's night time. It's best if we all travel together, which we mostly do. One of the amazing things is that locals are out a 3am or 4am, on the side of the road, cheering us on.

We are on our way to Zola Predosa, 347km the way a very drunk crow flys.

Eventually, after the first stop, at Crema, we start to split into smaller groups. There's Howard and Mike on their D's. There is the "fast boys" who run very fast, but have to fill up every 70km, and there's the plodders, such as myself and Ron, who keep going at 70kph, but only fill up every 160km, or so. As it turned out, plodding seems to be quicker than being fast.

There were some amazing sights over the trip. Towns which I wish I had seen in the daylight which had obviously changed little in centuries. However, my favourite was crossing a bridge as daylight was just showing on the horizon, with it reflecting on the water and being behind an ancient arched bridge, which was also reflected. Unfortunately, the light was too poor to take a photo, but it is instilled in my memory. Also driving doing a fantastic boulevard in Parma. Just incredible.

We had a number of stops during the night and morning. Fiorenzuola d'Arda serving Champagne... Ah, Champagne at 3am whilst in a race! Exactly what you need.

It was hard going though. Not because of distance, but because we travel a bit, and then stop and wait for a while before we can go again. This adds so many hours to the trip... it is really that that exhausts you.

Finally, the last section starting at Spilamberto was a twisty bit in the mountains. Pure bliss as it loosened you up after riding in a straight line for so long. So much fun! The scenary was amazing, with fantastic sights, and amazing roads. glad to say that I overtook quite a few motorcycles... who really didn't want to be overtaken by a scooter.

Finally, into our host town for tonight, Zola Predosa, which is just outside Bologna. I was so happy to see the chequered flag. We stopped, we talked, we ate, we drank. Then we got back to the hotel, and THEN I felt tired. I hit the bed about 1pm, after being awake for about 30 hrs, and I crashed. I didn't wake up again until just before 6pm. We then had to get ready for dinner. We got collected by bus and taken to the other hotel, where Dinner was held in a large tent. There maybe 280 competitors, but including organisers, support vans, ambulance, etc, there are about 500 people to cater for.

Dinner finished at about 11pm, and back to the hotel. It may be bed time for me, but I returned to find the fast boys in the middle of rebuilding a very nice Golden Special with a Mugello, variatronic and Ancilotti. Not because there was anything wrong with it, just the owner wanted to go faster. We had to be up again at 6am, for breakfast, 8:24am start and then 322km of twisties! These guys finished, apparently, at 1:30am.

just an update

No real post today, just a quick update.

Woke up at 6:30am and read my book, and promptly fell asleep at 7am, to wake up again at 9am. Something I'm very pleased about as I'm worried about lack of sleep.

Did last minute odds and ends, such as packing up scoot, pairing electronic devices, etc.

Cases get collected at noon.
3pm is scrutineering
Then to the Innocenti factory for photos
Back to Bricks, the local eating establishment for 7:30pm dinner
Then off to the race start to wait for midnight, and then we start in pairs, or threes, so I'll be going about 00:30am.

kick start shaft has brewers droop

Today I had to change the kick start shaft. Thank god Casa Lambretta is down the road, and that Vittorio let me use the workshop on a day when he's usually closed.

I started by 8:30am, and by 9:30am I had the engine disassembled. As you can see, the old kick start shaft was very bent. Vittorio then walked into the workshop with 3 shafts, of which he gave me an original Innocenti shaft. Around 10am, Vittorio went to get his son, I nearly had the engine re-assembled. I then broke an engine stud... and I had no-idea where the tools were. I had something else to do, so drilled the hole for the easy out, and then added a mount for my GPS. Vittorio returned to tell me that he had no easy out, and that one stud doesn't matter... well not that stud. By then it was 12:30, and Vittorio went off for lunch, and I continued ressembling the engine for the 2nd time... only to find that the kick start piston was catching the first gear, so I had to disassemble again, adjust the kick start ramp and re-assemble for the 3rd time! Perfect. No leaks. Working kick start! I finished about 3pm.

I returned to the B&B, and then went to fit the mirror.... to find the thread was too big for the hole. Ron phoned Donato, as I didn't want to bother Vittorio again, and Donato showed up at about 4:30pm with a drill and we solved that. Donato was about to leave, and then snapped a throttle cable. It took four of us to fix it. Donato to panic, his friend from Verona to supply tools, me to thread the cable and Ron to supply the cable. Almost sounds like a light bulb joke!

This evening we had the team dinner... which started at 9pm. I got to meet Howard Chambers and Mike Webster for the first time, along with their support crew of Malcolm and Colin, in possibly the only LDV in Italy!

Lake Como or Bust

I'd heard Lake Como was a beautiful spot, and I really needed to see that. The people around where we are staying are lovely people, very helpful. However, the area is very industrialised, and the traffic is quite heavy. So, what a great place for a shakedown trip. It's only 70km away, so Suzanne and Akiko could come, but far enough that any bugs in the machine should be found.

We got about 10Km, and my engine started racing rather badly, so we pulled over and checked the carb. There was a lot of very fine red powder in the carb, so we thought maybe fuel starvation. I cleaned the carb and it seemed OK, so off we went again. Unfortunately, I'm used to bolts that actually have some strength and in tightening up the clamp, the bolt snapped. Score 1 for superb Indian Engineering on the Jetex Carb (For the uninitiated, original Italian 22mm carbs are very hard to find, so we tend to use Indian copies). It was now 12:30, which meant that all the stores were closed for Siesta, and so we stopped in Melzo to have some water and a Pannini, and wait for 2:30pm, when the local scooter store would open again.

We caused quite a stir pulling up outside the cafe. People were genuinely delighted to see a pair of Lambrettas and when they found out we were from Australia, they nearly fell over themseves. This is fairly common. People talk to us at traffic lights, or even just shout out as they pass us in the car, or honk their horns and show a thumbs up.

I took the opportunity to have a look at the carb again, because it was still sticking, and found that the problem was the pivot point for the lever on top of the carb. Basically, if the nut and bolt were done up, the lever couldn't pivot properly, and so the carb stuck open, and so would race. Score 2 for Indian Carb quality! I loosened the nut and bolt, and it fixed the problem. However, this meant we now needed a small 7mm nut as well, or we'd loose the nut from vibration.

We arrived at the Scooter shop to find it was a Vespa dealer. I swallowed my pride, as Vespa nuts and bolts are better than what I had experienced so far. Initially the owner was not so keen to help us, thinking we needed his workshop to repair the scooter, and he pointed us to Vittorio. However, when he found out we just needed a bolt and a nut, he was more than delighted to help. He had been a Vespa dealer since the 50's, and had a very nice SS90 displayed inside his shop.

Even insisting on doing up the bolts himself, as he was concerned that I'd scratch my nail polish. Ron was kind enough to tell him it was ok, and not to worry. Such a knight in shinning armour!

The cost? Lots and lots and lots of photographs of him with the Lambrettas, of him with us and the Lambrettas from the front, of him with the Lambrettas from the back. Finally, we were on our way again to the home of stinky cheese!

We arrived In Gorgonzola with no further mishaps. We stopped for Ron to check out his GPS to the next town, and again someone stopped to talk to use because of the Lambrettas. When Ron told them where we were going, he told us he knew a fantastic way to get there and insisted we follow him. Apparently it was exactly the same way the GPS was going to take us and I still don't know what was so fantastic about it.

We got to Monza and Suzanne was feeling a bit exhausted from the heat, so we pulled up on the pavement on a boulevard which had some stunning buildings, and had some water. We were now 23km from the start, and it was 4 hrs later. Akiko had had enough too. So the answer was Bust! We never made it to Lake Como.

On my return, I called in to Vittorio's to get some more parts, and when I went to kick start the scoot, I found that the kickstart shaft had broken. As I type this, It's Saturday morning, the race starts tomorrow at midnight, and I'm just off to Vittorio's to put in a new kick start shaft.

As a trip to Lake Como.... a complete disaster. As a shakedown trip.... success! The glass is half full!

Front Brake and Tino Sacchi

Over the last few days I had realised that the front brake was about as useful as the rudder was on the Titanic when it was trying to avoid the iceberg! So, it was back to Vittorio's to use his workshop to find out what was wrong. Fortunately, it was just high spots on the shoes, and a bit of rubbing with glass paper got that sorted. Front brake works now, but needs some use to get it to work properly.

Tino Sacchi returned from EuroLambretta that morning, so we went over to meet him and his wife, Nadia, in the late afternoon. This meant riding through narrow windey lanes with crazy Italian drivers coming in the opposite direction.

Still, we made it to Tino's, and we were all warmly welcomed. You walk in, and the place is wall to wall Model A's. The two behind the television are because Tino wanted to see both sides at the same time, apparently.

Tino and I discussed the Lammie Drive North to South in 2013, particularly around dates, and what the Italians will be expecting. He liked that some nights were under canvas. He had some recommendations for me, based on his experiences of organising such events in the past. Then Tino decided he was hungry, but first of all he had to show me his bunker.

I got to see the famous Targa Twin, and Tino suggested to me that Akiko might leave one under the tree at Christmas time.

I also saw his Lotus 7, his wwII German military Zundapp with sidecar, and Super Monza, etc, etc, etc. He kept saying "Now we'll eat", and then find something else to show me.

Meanwhile, some more people from the Milano-Taranto team had showed up, and were building spares for the ride. Eventually, we all were reallly hungry and set off for dinner:

Finally the night was over, and Ron, Suzanne, Akiko and I rode back to the B&B and arrived at 1:30am. Next day... Lake Como! A Test ride.